The Oguraso Planner
A free guide for travelers who want Japan past the Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka corridor — written from the Japanese-only layer of the internet, where the real logistics live.
What's inside
- The booking layer nobody translates. How reservation-only restaurants, small ryokan and countryside taxis are actually reserved: which take no online booking at all, which want a telephone call and at what hour, how far ahead the good small places open, and what to do when the page is Japanese-only or there is no page.
- How the transport really works. Reading a local bus timetable, recognising when Google Maps is quietly wrong about the countryside, and the IC-card and luggage rules nobody warns you about.
- Season traps. What closes in winter, what is genuinely unbearable in August, and which festival weeks sell out an entire town without saying so in English.
Short and specific rather than comprehensive — every section is something we have either done ourselves or read off a Japanese page that has no English equivalent. If we could not verify it, it is not in there.
Get it by email
The planner is free. With it comes an occasional letter with new finds, season notes, and eventually the story of the inn we're working toward. No spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
The signup form is being prepared — for now, email hello@oguraso.com with the subject “planner” and we'll send it to you directly.
Why it's free
Because it's how we'd like to meet you. We're two people, Anna from Japan and Conrad from the US, working toward a small countryside inn of our own. The planner is the useful thing we can hand you today. If your trip needs more than a document, the itinerary check and the arrangements service exist for that.